United Shakes Up Marketing and Distribution Groups

(MoneyWatch)  It seems like a rare week when United isn't doing some sort of reorganization, but the latest round of changes in the marketing and distribution areas actually seem relatively positive.

It looks like United has finally realized that it could use a coherent, single distribution strategy. Incredible. Now e-commerce (includes united.com), merchandising, global distribution systems, and online travel agencies will all be under one group. So there will be one group responsible for how the airline distributes its product (excluding reservation call centers, I guess). That's great news, and it should help to clarify things tremendously.

When I was at PriceGrabber, I tried in vain to get an agreement to work with United. I spoke with people in three different areas, and all of them seemed to think they owned those relationships. Now, there really will be one group in charge of this, and I imagine it will have tremendous results. They have yet to find someone to run this group yet. I hope they choose carefully.

Meanwhile on the marketing side of the house, there have been big changes. SVP Chief Marketing and Customer Officer Dennis Cary is out. He is said to have resigned, but his position has been eliminated, so I'm not so sure that this was his choice. Dennis was the architect of many of the ancillary revenue initiatives, including the ill-fated effort to charge for meals on Transatlantic flights.

Now, there will be a super group created that includes Mileage Plus and Marketing under EVP Graham Atkinson. I think Graham should be an improvement, though I'm really surprised to see him getting this chance. When he was sent to Mileage Plus in order to look at spinning it off, I thought he was being marginalized. But now he's back in the spotlight at the center of it all once again. This guy has at least nine lives, but that's not necessarily bad. He seems to understand the customer experience and hopefully can have an impact.

Overall, some encouraging changes at United.